One morning back in 1999 I found myself standing outside my local post office with an older man who was wearing a olive drab sweater kaki pants and a belt that looked like it was made from hemp that hung down from his waist. He struck up a conversation with me about all the packages I had on my dolly. My wife and I were selling a lot of items on eBay then and I was making a run to the post office to put some of them in the mail. I had a very full dolly and the old man was very curious about this. He was peppering me with questions, who I was, what I had in the packages, how did I get started on eBay, what did I know about computers.
The door opened up a half and hour later and I was worn out, I felt as if this little old man was interrogating me, he was nice but he was intense. As he walked up to the counter I heard the clerk say, “good morning Mr. Desloge, here is your mail”. I said, “Desloge, let me shake your hand”. He asked my why, and I said, “I live less than 3 miles from your house, and your family donated Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, it is my favorite place in the entire state, I have always wanted to meet one the Desloges so I could say thank you, so thank you”. He almost glowed. Very few people knew that the Desloges had donated the park, so Joe was very surprised that I knew they were involved at all.
Joe and I became friends, and over the years I learned that there was a log cabin somewhere on the property that the Desloge family used to go to that was insulated by whoever built it by stuffing newspaper in the walls.
Johnson’s Shut-Ins is named after the Johnson family who once owned the property and who are buried in a small cemetery that is located on the park grounds. The name Shut-Ins comes form a formation of beautiful granite stone that is worn smooth by the currents of the black river as it is shut-in by the rocks. Joe’s father (Joseph Desloge Sr. Joe is really Jospeh Desloge Jr.) donated the park after spending years over 17 years to acquire the properties to make the park, and then spent more time donating money to improve the park. It is a special place, if you ever get the chance to visit, by all means do.
Years passed, and I went from selling on eBay to conducting estate sales, to conducting auctions. I joined the National Auctioneers Association (NAA) and attended many classes, at one of these classes I shared some information on Google marketing with one the instructors who wound up asking me to take over the class for the next 1/2 hour to share the information with the class. I was asked after the class to come help with other classes, then I started offering to teach classes to state auctioneers associations. I was asked to come to teach a class on accelerated marketing via Google and lead a round table on social media at the Texas Auctioneers Association’s meeting in the town of San Marcos, Texas. While I was at San Marcos I ate most of my meals in the hotel restaurant.
On the far end of the restaurant wall there was a picture of a beautiful stream running through purple/blue rocks in the middle of a forest. After looking at it for several meals I wandered over and had a closer look, it was a picture of Johnson Shut-ins. I thought it was fitting and a bit ironic that they would have a picture of this special place in Missouri (a place that held meant so much to me) hanging on the wall in Texas.